Boat people

The Boat people were a group of 1,000,000 refugees who fled Vietnam after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 on overcrowded and unseaworthy boats. The Chinese refugees, who were mostly the former leaders of South Vietnam's business community, were often extorted by the Vietnamese government in exchange for being allowed to leave. The flight of the boat people peaked from 1979 to 1982, but thousands still left Vietnam each month during the late 1980s. In 1985, the United Nations negotiated a resettlement scheme in which thirteen member nations, including the United States, Japan, and Canada, agreed to take a yearly quota of refugees. In addition, the navy of Thailand was commissioned to prevent pirates robbing and sinking boats. From the late 1980s, an increasing number of refugees were of Vietnamese origin, with a significant number from the north. Wealthier refugees successfully resettled, but many poorer ones ended in camps waiting to be resettled in Vietnam, as in Hong Kong.